Royal family
The Duke of Sussex could be headed towards a reconciliation with his father at some point, but one royal isn’t willing to forgive and forget.
There was new hope that a reconciliation between Prince Harry and King Charles could actually happen after the Duke of Sussex’s chief communications officer, Meredith Maines, and Liam Maguire, who runs Harry and Meghan’s U.K. public relations team, met with the king’s communications secretary, Tobyn Andreae. But after photos of the trio were published in the press, that hope dwindled.
Fingers immediately began pointing at the Sussexes as the suspected leakers of the information. But Harry and Meghan are denying it was them with someone from their team telling The Telegraph that the photos appearing in the news were “a disastrous start” to what was meant to be a “quiet step towards reconciliation.”
Now, with everyone questioning if a reconciliation could still happen, a royal commentator is reminding everyone that one royal isn’t interested.
The royal who will forgive Prince Harry when ‘hell freezes over’
Thanks to the leak, no one is sure now if these talks are going anywhere. But even if progress is made between Harry and King Charles, it doesn’t look like the duke’s brother, Prince William, will be as forgiving.
In a column for the Daily Mail, royal commentator Amanda Platell wrote: “Friends say that despite all the pain Harry has caused him, King Charles is a ‘deeply loving and forgiving father,’ so a small step towards a rapprochement between father and son certainly seems plausible. The trouble is that, while Charles may forgive Harry, hell will freeze over before William does too. Or for that matter, Kate.”
William tried to have his own ‘peace talks’ with Harry but has since washed his hands of their relationship
Prince William reportedly tried to have “peace talks” with his brother years ago before things took the turn that they did. But Harry refused to meet with him then.
Long before the Sussexes’ Netflix documentary and the duke’s book Spare ruined any image the public had of a great relationship between the siblings, Harry admitted things weren’t so good. In the 2019 documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, the prince stated that he and William were on “different paths.”
According to the book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown by veteran reporter Valentine Low, William reached out to his younger brother after the documentary aired and asked him for a meeting.
An extract from the book read: “The day after the documentary aired, William WhatsApped his brother to ask if he could come and see him. Initially, Harry was in favor. Then he spoke to his brother again and asked him whom he would tell. William explained that he’d have to clear his schedule, which would mean telling his private secretary. At that point, Harry told him: ‘Don’t come.’ He was so concerned that William’s team would leak the visit to the press that he would rather not see his brother than risk it getting into the papers.”
But after Harry moved across the pond and aired out the royal family’s dirty laundry to the highest bidder a friend of the Prince of Wales told the Daily Beast, “He feels utterly betrayed … He hates [Harry] for what he has done to the family in the books and interviews … It’s no secret William would prefer it if Harry never stepped foot in England again.”
